Dream Big (Sur)
I’ll bet you’ve heard of people dreaming in color. What about a dream with fragrances? Or textures caressing the tips of your fingers and bottoms of your feet? Have you ever felt the wind in a dream? Ever woken up from a dream, only to discover you were still in one?
One day not long ago, while hiking in a secret place high among the mountains of Big Sur, I came upon a picnic bench overlooking the green dells and rugged, wild coastline of this mystical land. How did it get here, so far up a narrow, winding trail? Why was it here? It called to me, and I was tired, so I took off my pack and lie down upon it, warm sun soothing me and enveloping me until I drifted slowly into a light sleep. Then deeper, as the world hushed.
I opened my eyes to be standing in a dry, barren place, looking down upon a rock. There was a beautiful rose setting on the rock, in a jar of water. The rose spoke to me, but the words were not sounds — they were smells! The smell of sweet perfume drifting up to me, saying “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst”. I drank, and its perfume entered my body and filled me with serenity. With peace. I was ready to walk on. I turned to get my pack, but it was gone. So was the picnic bench. I continued on anyway.
I seemed to be on the same trail, but everything slowed down. My breathing. My thoughts. Sounds. I wasn’t wearing hiking boots any longer — the grass cradled my bare feet, velvety blades soft on my soles and my soul; my weight did not crush it. A honey bee leisurely floated up to me and asked me to follow her. She then circled me twice, the wind from her wings tickling my ears, and flew off. “How?” I cried after her. She returned and said “like this” and her wings stroked the air as if she were under water. “Oh, I can swim” I realized, and I raised my arms and swam after her, through the sky and around trees and sunflowers and old men in felt hats (one of whom swatted at me) (he missed).
The Journey Begins
We swam past a mountain pond of the most brilliant greens I have ever seen. My bee escort called back to me using scent, not words. She said Big Sur held secrets many people sought but could not find because they believed the lies fed to them by the world. “What lies?” I called out. This time she used the vibrations of her wings to communicate to me… “that you are separate, small, weak”.
We stopped by a gigantic sunflower, as big as a house. Or was I just small? I thought about my missing backpack; I had a peanut butter sandwich in there I could use right about now. Not because I was hungry, but because eating it would prove whether I was dead or not. Dead people don’t eat peanut butter.
Anyway, my bee friend called out to her comrades on the flower…she would be late tonight, but to save some nectar for her. And off we swam.
High above the Santa Lucia mountains we soared, above clouds and even rainbows. Big Sur blends everything together; sky with sea with fog with rainbows with mountains with creatures. We are not separate. Not from one another. Not from the land. Not from the creatures.
And we are definitely not small. We hold the power of creation within us. We are creators.
Living in Big Sur is like living in a dream. I did not expect most of what has happened to me here. Like a dream, things come around the bend unexpectedly. Storms appear suddenly over the vast Pacific Ocean; a bobcat appears in front of me on a trail; waves of fog suddenly drift into valleys like a ghostly ocean seeking its shore. And a bee…something I used to think of as a dangerous, pesky ‘insect’, was now guiding me through a Big Sur as she saw it.
We swam through the air and into a beautiful garden, dreamlike and filled with so many vibrations and sounds and smells that I thought I would become that which I drifted upon and through…I would disappear into the scent of life. But instead, everything slowed down and I was able to feel the heartbeat of the life of Big Sur — its flowers, its perfumes, even its creatures called bees. I floated near the home of my bee friend, watching her sisters fly to and fro, their wings stroking the air in a miracle of flight. I was mesmerized by the invisible rhythms that I had overlooked my whole life.
Balance
We then flew along the coast, in the wild salty breeze of the ocean melting with the warm winds flowing down from mountains above. My mind dropped all cares about shoes or backpacks. Instead, I thought about us humans; we were hunter-gatherers until about 10,000 years ago. We were connected closely to our Mother Earth, following the seasons and also the contours of her bountiful land wherever they took us, much as I followed the contours of her coastline now. We took only what we needed. We knew her intimately. When the agricultural revolution appeared, we slowly lost our connection, our balance with our Mother. We became chained to plots of land, and thus began the slow ‘progression’ into other revolutions such as industrial and technological. Each has taken us further away from nature; further away from balance.
Big Sur is about balance. Visitors come here to tear away the insulation between them and nature. When I find myself irritated, lost, upset or fearful I go into her and let her into me. Into my heart my lungs my mind my soul and I am freed from the imaginary chains of the myths we have grown to believe are real — separateness from nature and other humans, dependence on news feeds and emails and phones and BMWs. I become balanced in Big Sur’s arms.
My bee friend and I then floated into a mountain meadow laced with flowers. For the first time in what seemed like hours my feet touched the ground, as I followed her into the waves of brilliant colors. Somehow we walked side by side, and it did not seem strange to me. I was barefoot and I laughed at the thought of wearing shoes.
Giant poppies surrounded me, towering over me, bathing me in orange-filtered shadows and kaleidoscope skies. They swayed slowly in the breeze, like guardians encouraging me forward. I noticed they were not wearing shoes, either. My bee friend left me there, saying she was late for dinner back at the hive. I asked her how I was going to get home?
She said I was already there. Then she swam away, in the ocean of air.
Home
I turned from the towering poppies and found myself at another bench, with a sun setting and a moon rising. My pack was now on my shoulders. How did I get here? Not just to this spot, but to this place? This Big Sur. Was I awake now?
I hoped not, as I watched Luna rise above me as she has for millennia.
If you liked this post, you might click the ‘clapping hands’ in the margin. All photographs and videos are mine, taken in Big Sur, unless otherwise noted.
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Peace be with you.
